Tomás Ó Flatharta

I came across this fascinating obituary because Norma’s son, John Barzman, is known to me – although we never properly met in person. John is a longtime activist in and around the Fourth International – he participates within the European Network in Solidarity with Ukraine (ENSU). Link : European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine

Until today, I knew nothing about John’s family background – many condolences to John, and all friends and family of Norma Barzman.

More about John Barzman here : He is professor emeritus at the University of Le Havre in Normandy where he teaches contemporary history and American civilization. He is a member of Ensemble! and the Fourth International. Link : John Barzman

A correspondent, Walter Lippmann, writes : “I met her a year or two ago at her home. What a wonderful person she was and I’m so sorry it was not possible for me to take a picture of her that day. She was still working at the age of 101 or so. Totally articulate and very radical. Her interview in the collection Tender Comrades is excellent, as is her blacklist memoir.”

John Meehan December 31 2023

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Norma Barzman, Screenwriter Who Was Blacklisted During McCarthy Era, Dies at 103. Source, Variety, December 19 2023 : link : Tribute to Norma Barzman, 1920-2023

Screenwriter Norma Barzman, who got her start during the Golden Age of Hollywood and was blacklisted with her husband during the McCarthy era, died Sunday in Beverly Hills, her son Paolo confirmed. She was 103. 

Barzman and her husband, fellow screenwriter Ben Barzman, moved to Europe as did many other Hollywood progressives who came under McCarthy’s scrutiny. The couple and their seven children lived in London, Paris and Mougins, France between 1949 and 1976. Ben Barzman died in 1989.

Norma Barzman was also active in getting credits restored for blacklisted writers whose films were released with a “front” name, such as her film “The Locket.” In 1999, her writing credit was restored on the 1953 film “Luxury Girls,” which had carried the name of the front Ennio Flaiano. 

Barzman spoke out in protest when Elia Kazan, who was a witness before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, was given an honorary Oscar in 1998, and was instrumental in helping to organize an exhibit on the Hollywood Blacklist at the Academy in 2001.

She authored “The Red and the Blacklist: The Intimate Memoir of a Hollywood Expatriate,” which was released in 2003 and documents her experience as a blacklisted writer. 

She recounted her experiences in the L.A. Times in 2014. “But even in Europe, the U.S government kept these exiles at close range,” Susan King wrote. “After obtaining her FBI files, Norma Barzman ‘discovered they followed us in Paris. We moved around a lot, and they knew every telephone number and every address. They knew everything we did from 1949 to 1954 until we bought our house in Paris.’ And to complicate matters, the U.S. Embassy took away her passport in 1951 for seven years.”

Barzman also wrote the story “What Nancy Wanted,” which Sheridan Gibney adapted into the script for the 1946 psychological thriller “The Locket.” She was given a co-writing credit years later. The film stars Laraine Day as Nancy, a woman who is about to be married when another man visits her fiancé, claiming to be her former husband and alleging that she is mentally disturbed. The film is known for its use of flashbacks. 

Among her other credits were the script for the 1946 Warner Bros. romantic comedy “Never Say Goodbye,” starring Errol Flynn and Eleanor Parker as a divorced couple whose daughter tries to bring them back together. 

Barzman wrote the 1953 French-Italian comedy film “Finishing School” and later penned the Italian television series “Il triangolo rosso,” which ran from 1967-1969. She made on screen appearances as an actress in “Theatre 70” (1970) and “Pajama Party” (2000). 

Barzman was born on Sept. 15, 1920 in New York City. She was briefly married to mathematician Claude Shannon; they lived together in Princeton, N.J. before divorcing. She then relocated to Los Angeles alongside her mother and took classes at The School for Writers, which had leftist members. 

Barzman is survived by seven children, including her son Paolo Barzman, who is a film and television director-writer.

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Marilyn Monroe Came to Warn Us

So she and her husband were out there, sitting on the lawn of their home on 1290 Sunset Plaza Drive in Beverly Hills, having a cool drink, and they were waiting for their children to come home. There was a hot Santa Ana wind blowing, and the housekeeper had taken the children to the beach, so they could get some fresh air. Suddenly, a convertible—an elderly Cadillac—with a beautiful blonde woman came up the hill and pulled up their driveway. They looked at her because they didn’t know who she was or what was happening. The woman got out of her car, and walked a couple of steps; she looked nervous and scared. Ms. Barzman asked her if she was okay. But the young woman said that she was stopped at the bottom of the hill by two sheriff’s cars; they were stopping every car that was going up and asked everyone if they were going to number 1290 because that house was under surveillance. ‘I thought I ought to warn you,’ the young woman said to the Barzmans. She was going up the hill to Judy Garland’s house for a cocktail party. Ms. Barzman remembered that she shook the young lady’s hand and said, ‘My name is Norma.’ ‘Ooh, my name is Norma too.’ Then she got back in her car and left. Ms. Barzman then wanted to call her mother and tell her about what had happened. ‘When I picked up the phone, I heard a conversation, a phone call, that I had with a friend of mine two days before. I could hear it playing back. Then I put down the phone because I realized that my phone was tapped and I knew they were watching us.’
A few years later, when in exile in Paris, her husband was reading the Herald Tribune and he spotted a familiar face: it was Norma, the blonde who had tipped them off about the surveillance. She was an aspiring actress who had played small and supporting roles. Her name was Marilyn Monroe. Ms. Barzman, ‘So Marilyn Monroe came to warn us.’

Source : Norma Barzman, victim of Hollywood blacklist: “Marilyn Monroe came to warn us”